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The 2023 Aurora Dialogues Online event titled “From Vulnerability to Leadership: Women Shaping the Future Against All Odds” took place on May 15, 2023, and featured inspiring female leaders from around the world. The discussion, moderated by Julia Middleton, Founder of Common Purpose and Women Emerging, brought together Armine Afeyan, Executive Director of the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative; Shad Begum, Aurora Prize Expert Panel Member and Founder/CEO of the Association for Behavior & Knowledge Transformation (ABKT); Margee Ensign, President of the United States International University, and Julienne Lusenge, 2021 Aurora Prize Laureate and Co-Founder of the Fund for Congolese Women (FFC).
Kicking off the discussion, Armine Afeyan, Executive Director of the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative, talked about the close connection between this humanitarian movement and the issue of women’s empowerment. “Aurora is named for a woman who persevered, despite all odds, told her story, and inspired America’s first philanthropic movement. From there, the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative, we believe in everyday people doing extraordinary things. A prerequisite for that is just being there, and women, by necessity, are always there,” noted Armine Afeyan before pointing out that in the first 8 years of the Initiative’s existence, it has impacted the lives of hundreds of thousands of women across the globe.
The panelists also discussed the role that other women had played in shaping their leadership styles and how they had drawn inspiration from their families. Speaking of the things she had learned from her mother as a child, Julienne Lusenge, 2021 Aurora Prize Laureate and Co-Founder of the Fund for Congolese Women (FFC), reminisced: “Every time she went to help with mediation between the locals and the European missionaries, she didn’t forget to take care of us. [She showed me that] women can be persons who resolve conflict and women can have a leadership and promote peace in the country.”
